Daughter of Mine | Harry Potter

IX.

The next morning Lalia woke up to an empty dormitory, she stared around in confusion until she remembered that it was the first day of holidays.

She wondered who she was supposed to spend time with now, since she was no longer on speaking terms with the trio. She had wandered to the library for the new couple of days, only to stop every time she saw the trio there. She would roll her eyes and turn around.

She had spent more days with her dad than she thought healthy, but he was the only one in the castle she could talk to.

Right after her argument with Harry she had stormed into her dad's office on a war path.

"You never told me that you were friends with Harry's dad."

The smile that been on his lips at the sight of his daughter had fallen off his face.

Clearing his throat, he asked, "And where did you hear that from?"

"The minister! He told everyone in the Three –" she cut off, as she realized in her anger filled rant that she had begun to tell on herself.

"He told everyone, and they told me!" she said hotly. Turning back to stare at him.

"I see. So, tell me. How did you get to Hogsmeade?" He said, putting the quill in his hands down. "And don't try lying to me again because just before I came to my office, I ran into the Minister on his way back from the Three Broomsticks and that was less than five minutes ago."

Lalia cursed herself for her slip-up. She looked up at her father, but the hard stare he was giving caused her to look back down at her feet.

"I can't tell you..." she muttered.

"You can't or won't?" he asked angrily.

"Both." She had gained a little confidence and looked into his eyes.

"That's fine. But from now on, you stay with me on any Hogsmeade days," he said.

Lalia gasped at him before shaking her head. "Fine, fine! That still doesn't change the fact you lied to me! You and dad were friends with James!"

Remus sighed. "We were."

"Why didn't you tell me that?" she asked, dropping into a chair on the other side of his desk.

"Because it thought it was easier for you. When you and Harry were little, you two were best friends. Inseparable. Your first words were each other's names. So, with the possibility of you two meeting again I bent the truth. I told you your dad worked for Voldemort, that he betrayed his best friend, that he hated the Potters' for destroying his master. That was all you needed to know."

Lalia was shocked about the details of her past.

"I did it to salvage any possibility of a friendship you two could have. James would've wanted you to be friends, regardless of what Sirius did."

Lalia looked at her dad's worn face, her anger slowly leaving her body.

"Can you tell me more?"

He smiled at her and nodded.

"We were a troublesome bunch when we were in school, especially Sirius and James, when they got an idea in their heads, they never let it go."

That was how Lalia spent her break, she would help her dad with his work and in exchange she would receive stories about his time at school.

She could hear the longing in his voice for simpler times, possibly even for her father, but she never could bring herself to ask the question that lingered in the back of her mind constantly. No, she would shake her head and ask a different question.